(I’m serving a woman and her roughly eight-year-old son.)

Customer: “That’s what I forgot to grab. I was going to buy you some dental floss. I need to teach you how to floss.”

(Suddenly, the kid looks really excited, like he’s about to jump out of his skin.)

Customer: “Not Fortnite floss. Floss your teeth.”

(The son frowned and slumped off to go sit down, looking quite upset. The customer just looked at me and rolled her eyes.)

(For a few days, I’ve been noticing that our dishwasher hasn’t been washing properly. I put it on in the evening and then in the morning, I find that the tablet is still in the dispenser and the dishes are wet but still dirty. It always washes perfectly the second time around.)

Me: *after the fourth day* “What the h*** is wrong with the dishwasher? It’s not working properly.”

Son: “Yeah, I noticed that, too. I was going to talk to you about it.”

Me: “Have you been running it again, too?”

Son: “No, I keep hearing a noise like something has fallen over in it, and when I take a look, I see that the little plastic door is open and the dishwasher tablet has fallen out. I’ve been putting the tablet back in and closing it up every night.”

I’ve never enjoyed going to church. I could barely keep myself awake during the services because I found the whole thing boring. I still see myself as Christian; I just don’t like going to mass. Every Sunday, my little brother and I would try our best to sleep in — or pretend to sleep in — until our parents just gave up and left without us. I celebrated when I finally got my Confirmation and they couldn’t force me to go anymore. I still went for Midnight Mass because it was a Christmas tradition, but never at any other point.

One Saturday, though, my dad pulled me aside and asked if I could go to church with mom the next day. He was doing the reading and he didn’t want to leave her alone. I didn’t really get it, but I figured that since that Sunday was Mother’s Day, I’d throw her a bone. Sure, I’d already gotten her a present, but he seemed pretty insistent.

So I went. Mom was pretty surprised, but she wasn’t complaining. I was doing my best to try and not look like I was on the verge of passing out, as usual, when about halfway through the service, I finally got a good look at my mom.

She looked like she was trying — and failing — not to cry.

That was when it hit me; this was her first Mother’s Day after her mother, my grandmama, had passed away from lung cancer. We weren’t that close, but I couldn’t even imagine what Mom had been going through all day. Immediately feeling horrible for silently treating this like a burden, I snuck in a hug and made sure she knew how much I loved her and appreciated everything she did for me. She hugged me back and finally let herself straight-up cry.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine my life without her, even now as I’m living on my own. She doesn’t have to imagine life without her mother; she’s living it.

(I am about eight years old. I wake up before my parents one Sunday morning and decide I want to do something nice for them and make breakfast. Setting the table goes fine, making tea goes fine — water-heater, so no stove involved — but then I come to the bread. On a normal Sunday, my mom will eat just a few slices of bread, my dad a croissant, and I a breakfast roll. The thing is, I don’t know the breakfast rolls are bake-off bread, while the other stuff is just frozen. So, little oblivious me just puts everything in the microwave to defrost it. When the microwave pings, the slices and croissant are ready, but the roll still looks “frozen.” No biggie, I think; maybe it just needs longer to defrost. So, I put the roll back in the microwave, set the timer as far as it will go, thinking I can check up on it every couple of minutes until it is done, and turn it on again. Then, I go to watch TV and, as you can imagine, pretty much forget about the roll, until after a while I notice a burning smell and smoke coming out of the kitchen. I turn off the microwave, open it — more smoke — open the garden door, usher the dogs and cat outside because I think they shouldn’t be in a room that is full of smoke, and go upstairs to tell my parents. They are both still sound asleep. As my mom is sick, I try and wake up my dad.)

Me: *softly* “Dad?”

Dad: *snores*

Me: *louder* “Dad.”

Dad: *grumbles*

Me: *shaking his shoulder* “Daaad.”

Dad: *grumpily* “What?”

Me: “The kitchen’s full of smoke.”

Dad: “WHAT?!”

(You can bet he flew out of bed after hearing that. Thankfully, my well-intentioned mishap caused no permanent damage, and my parents were even able to laugh about it… after the microwave was cleaned out.)

(Mom has never been outside the US in her life. We pick her up in Frankfurt and head out on the Autobahn back to Wurzburg. As we are going along, she starts noticing the signs, “Ausfahrt” and “Einfahrt,” at the side of the road. She asks her dutiful son:)

Mom: “What do those signs mean?

Me: “Well, Mom, ‘Einfahrt’ means you can only fart once. ‘Ausfahrt’ means you can fart all you want!”

(Twenty silent miles go past as she mulls that over.:)

Mom: “These people are nasty!”

(My wife can’t stand it me pranking her.)

Wife: “Don’t listen to that fool. Those words mean ‘exit’ and ‘entrance.’”

(Mom looks at her, looks at me, and then exclaims:)

Mom: “These people aren’t nasty; it’s my own darned son that’s nasty!”